Shaq and Lewa draw

Müller and Götze get the better of Bernat

Created on 18-11-2014 at 22:40 PM

World Cup winners Germany rounded off their fixtures for 2014 with a last-minute 1-0 victory over European champions Spain on Tuesday night courtesy of a Toni Kroos strike in the 89th minute. The match, featuring FCB trio Thomas Müller, Mario Götze and Juan Bernat from the start, ended with the Germans’ first victory in Spain for 32 years.

“It’s a good result,” Müller said afterwards, “and we deserved it. We showed we’re a force to be reckoned with.” The 25-year-old had to go off after 22 minutes with a dead leg, “and I hope the bruising’s not too bad,” he said with an eye on Bayern’s meeting with Hoffenheim this Saturday, “let’s see what the medical tells us.”

Both Manuel Neuer (knee) and Jérôme Boateng (calf) were missing from a makeshift Germany team featuring only three of the players from the World Cup final back in July. However, Joachim Löw’s men defended capably and made the best chances too, Götze narrowly missing the target on 20 minutes after a fine Müller lay-off.

The flow was affected by the rain-sodden conditions in Vigo and the second-half action was largely confined to midfield. But the visitors were prepared to try their luck from distance, Kevin Volland bringing a good save out of substitute keeper Francisco Casilla in the 79th minute, before Kroos went one better with a similar effort to win the contest a minute from time.

Warsaw draw for Lewandowski and Shaqiri

The head-to-head in Warsaw between Robert Lewandowski and Xherdan Shaqiri, who started for Poland and Switzerland respectively, ended in a 2-2 draw. Bayern’s Swiss schemer made a great start with a fine assist for Josip Drmic to open the scoring, although Shaq should really have made it two with a relatively simple chance on 13 minutes. The Poles punished that lapse on the stroke of half-time when Artur Jedrzejczyk levelled for Lewandowski and Co.

A foul on Lewandowski after an hour led directly to Poland’s second goal, Arkadiusz Milik firing the resulting free-kick from just short of 20 yards into the left corner of the net. Poland skipper Lewandowski was substituted shortly afterwards, but the home side were reduced to ten men with Michal Zyro’s dismissal after 80 minutes and the Swiss ultimately scored a deserved equaliser through Fabian Frei three minutes from the end.